345 



the Bodleian Library, Oxford, transcribed in the year 1453, and a 

 valuable copy in Trinity College of the early part of the fifteenth cen- 

 tury. We cannot at present claim to possess Cormac's autograph copy 

 of the work ; but Mr. Stokes, who has examined with critical exact- 

 ness the historical arguments for and against Cormac's authorship, 

 admits that, if absolute authority is wanting to prove that the tract was 

 composed by Cormac himself, the internal evidence is such as to con- 

 vince competent judges that it must have been originally written, if 

 not in Cormac's time, within a century thereafter at most. 



In this glossary the word Currech, or Curragh, occurs twice, and 

 is thus explained, viz. : — 



1. " Cuirrech, i.e. a cursu, i. e. reidhe: Cuirrech, vero, do radh fri 



Sescend, i. e. corra rechait and" which, translated, rereads 

 "Currech, i.e. a cursu, i.e. running (or racing); Currech, 

 indeed, is applied to a sheskin (morass), viz., cranes (corra) 

 frequent it." 



2. Cormac again has " Cuirrech, i. e. a currihus, i. e. fich carpait" 



which means " Curragh, i.e. a currihus, viz., contest of cha- 

 riots." The word "fich" is also glossed " deine," ablative of 

 " dian," — swift, vehement; and the explanation of Cormac, 

 therefore, plainly points to chariot races. 



In O'Davoran's " Irish Glossary," compiled in 1569, and 

 also published by Mr. Stokes, " Currach" is explained " Corr- 

 iath, i. e. iathna corr" (corr-iath, i. e. the land of the herons). 

 This explanation is, of course, entirely fanciful, and the glos- 

 sarist has even committed a very great error, grammatically, 

 in identifying Currech with Corr-iath. The anonymous author 

 of a curious Latin poem, in the possession of Lord Talbot de 

 Malahide, written in the seventeenth century, an extract from 

 which may be seen in Mr. Gilbert's " History of Irish Viceroys" 

 (p. 511), derives the name of the Curragh "a fessis equis," 

 " from tired horses" — as if the word were compounded oicortha 

 (pron. cor ha) u tired," and ech, " a horse." 



Now, it cannot, I think, be doubted that, in furnishing an expla- 

 nation of the word Curragh, and deriving it from " running" or 

 "racing," the compiler of this glossary, who was probably no other 

 than Cormac Mac Cuillenan, had the Curragh of Kildare in view ; for, 

 although there are countless places in Ireland bearing the name of Cur- 

 ragh, singly or in compound, to which the description " crane land" 

 applies, or may have applied, I know of no other place so called to which 

 the derivation a currihus can be held to be applicable. Cormac must 

 have known the Curragh of Kildare well. He lost his life almost 

 within sight of its green slopes ; and the battle which proved fatal to 

 him is asserted to have been caused by a dispute with the Monarch of 

 Ireland, Flann Sionna, regarding the right of presentation to the 

 neighbouring church of Monasterevan. Moreover, the Curragh of Kil- 

 dare never was a sheskin, or morass. It was not a sheskin in 484, 



